A seven-month-old St. Louis bookstore will be among just five stores across the U.S. to host a midnight release party tonight for the literary world’s equivalent to a Taylor Swift album: a new novel by Thomas Pynchon. 

James Crossley, the co-owner of Leviathan Bookstore (3211 South Grand), says the party came about because he was personally excited about the book (Pynchon, he says, was one of the first authors who taught him that serious literature could also be silly) and wanted to treat it like the launch of a mass-market bestseller.

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Shadow Ticket, after all, is the 88-year-old Pynchon’s first release since 2013. The cult-favorite author is having a moment; One Battle After Another, an adaptation of his 1990 novel, Vineland, is one of the biggest movies in the world right now. Yet Pynchon has never given a formal interview; the only photos that have reached the public date back to his school days. His reclusiveness meant there was little advance notice that the book was about to drop—and Crossley thought the long wait made the release even more of an event. 

“I immediately had the notion that we should open at midnight, because, to me, this is that kind of book,” he says. “That trend started, I think, with Harry Potter. And I’m like, This is so much more important than Harry Potter, and it deserves that sort of thing.” 

Pynchon’s publisher offered some merchandise (tote bags, baseball caps) that bookstores hosting midnight release parties could use in giveaways, and Crossley assumed many would then jump in. As it turns out, though, it’s just two Seattle shops, one in New York City, and one in Columbus, Ohio. 

While Crossley can’t sell you a copy of Shadow Ticket until midnight, he was able to read a copy of it. (The perks of being a bookseller!) It is, he says, vintage Pynchon–-a manageable size, unlike some of his doorstopper novels, but with the same vibe. “It very much feels like a book that could have come out of one of the dozen threads in Gravity’s Rainbow,” he says, referencing the author’s 1974 National Book Award winner. And here, there’s a Midwestern age: It begins in 1930s Milwaukee. 

On Monday night, Crossley hopes to geek out with fellow Pynchon fans and just generally have a good time. In the words of the shop’s Instagram post, “We’ll have refreshments, a special book-themed soundtrack, trivia, and prizes. Best Pynchon-related costume? You get a prize! Person who traveled the farthest to come to the party? You get a prize! Know more than anyone else about the enigmatic 88-year-old who’s given us all a reason to get together? You get a prize!”

“We’ll be here as long as people want to be here,” says Crossley.